Die Meditation im Spirituellen Reformprogramm der Devotio Moderna

10.1163/ej.9789004192430.i-440.55

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Chapter Summary

Lefèvre and his associates began editing twelfth-century monastic works as part of their effort to reinvigorate French monasticism and spiritual life, over and against a perceived degeneration in late medieval devotional practices. Both Hugh of Saint Victor and Lefèvre d'Etaples consider meditation to be a simultaneously cognitive and spiritual activity. Pseudo-Dionysian theology enabled Victorine and Fabrist spiritual thinkers alike to articulate the relation between meditation and contemplation, and to attribute a central place to logical reasoning in Christian life. Richard of Saint Victor also explains the differences between cognition, meditation and contemplation from the point of view of the objects on which they bear. Charity is an important key to the way Richard relates rational philosophy as a modus ratiocinandi to Christian faith. Lefevre's commentaries introduce speculations on spiritual psychology that further inflect Richard's Trinity.